Oxford heated over-grips

[greatmaul]

Hi! I've been freaking out about cold weather here, since it has been dipping into the mid to high 20's. I read that wind chill will reduce this to either 5 degrees or -10 depending on what scale you use. With that in mind, I got some heated over-grips off of ebay:

They're supposed to get very hot! which I don't really understand. I mean, why make a product that deliberately gets too hot, when you could adjust it to make it a little less hot than that. Maybe it heats up very fast that way. In any case, I'm thinking of trying to wire a switch in that leads to a heat sink resistor so I can have at least 2 temp settings.
There's a great review and pics and instructions on this site: http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=429236

I have the grips and it looks pretty easy. I'll post when I try them out and see how that works. I didn't want to do the usual grip heaters because I was worried about ripping off my old grips and gluing new ones on permanently. Now I'm worried that these will be exposed to the weather, so I guess you can't really win. Hopefully these will lessen the handlebar vibration a bit at least!

Oh, also ordered but haven't received a 7.4v rechargeable battery powered heated vest. Supposed to run for a good 5 hours or so on a charge, and my commute is only a bit less than 2 hours, so hopefully will help, too.

[Gz Rider]

...

[Water Warrior 2]

A little late to tell you this but you can remove the grips without damage and put them back on easily. Symtec makes grip heaters with a hign/low setting. Both bikes have them and they work well. The GZ will power them quite nicely. How many watts do the Oxford heaters draw ??

[greatmaul]

seriously, you can remove the grips without damage? hm.. well that's ok I guess. I don't anticipate these lasting forever, so I can switch things up later. The ones I really liked were built into a replacement grip but they said everything had to be expoxied back permanently, and the old grips had to be cut off with a knife.

They seem to be 18watts each so 36 total. A bit more than I thought. I do have pretty good gloves, plus have the elephant ear msr hand guards to cut the wind. I might end up doing hand muffs, but so far I'm good.

[Water Warrior 2]

Originally Posted by greatmaul

seriously, you can remove the grips without damage? hm.. well that's ok I guess. I don't anticipate these lasting forever, so I can switch things up later. The ones I really liked were built into a replacement grip but they said everything had to be expoxied back permanently, and the old grips had to be cut off with a knife.

They seem to be 18watts each so 36 total. A bit more than I thought. I do have pretty good gloves, plus have the elephant ear msr hand guards to cut the wind. I might end up doing hand muffs, but so far I'm good.

Done 3 bikes so far and they all have the original grips. The grips with molded in heaters are very expensive and the Suzuki brand are the pits. They do not heat all the way around the grip. Symtec heaters draw half the wattage of the over grips and are not all that bad/difficult of an install. Preplanning your install goes a long way to making it easier, same as any other farkle on the bike. Symtecs come with all the needed wiring and such. Californiasporttouring has them for about $45/50 I think.
Trouble free on the Vstrom for 5 years now.

[greatmaul]

Just installed them today really quick before I had to go to work. Expecting temps around the mid 30's tonight on the way home so should be a good test. I work evenings, so will be riding from 11:30pm to about 1:15am.

[greatmaul]

Have to report that I totally love these. It was cold as heck, and I didn't have my super insulated gloves on on purpose (they were in the trunk) because I kind of hate them and wanted to see if the grips alone would work.

For a bit, I had them turned on and off, because I was afraid of the power draw. Then when I had them on they got so hot that I shut them off because I was afraid I might not be able to touch the handlebars!

After a little while with them off, I realized my hands were so incredibly cold, even with the wind deflectors, that they were starting to hurt really bad. I also realized that the grips may get hot fast, but they're not going to keep getting hot until they're molten or something, so I just turned them on and left them on.

And... it was like soaking my hands in a warm cup of coffee. Once I got used to the temp, I didn't want to take my hands off of them. Really I felt totally comfortable and relaxed. The only bad part was I realized I was purposely not covering my brake and clutch when I maybe should have, because I didn't want to take my hands off of them. I even shifted several times on accident without using the clutch because my hand was wrapped to the bar.

Now I'm looking for muffs, because I'm thinking if my hands had nice little heated rooms to sit in, I might not worry about taking them off of the grips.

[Water Warrior 2]

A cheap rheostat switch would allow some heat control. I'm sure there are newer more modern controllers but this comes to mind.

[Dupo]

/banned